From the corridors of the Jewish Museum Berlin

From the In-Box of the Blog Editorial

Luckily, this blog receives anti-Semitic comments only rarely. When the case arises, we, the moderators, ask ourselves – as we do with all comments – whether we should publish them and make them visible for others, or not? Should we post this type of aggressive nonsense for the sake of transparency and documentation, and reveal the statements a Jewish museum has to deal with? Should we perhaps even reply to them and invalidate the commentator’s ‘arguments,’ if he or she has any? Or would we be offering anti-Semites an unwarranted platform? So far, we have opted against publishing the type of comment which reproduces age-old theories of world conspiracy. Such delusions are far too widely proliferated already, and we neither want to spread them further nor compel our readers to take them seriously on the Jewish Museum’s blog.

Blog editor at work

Much more often, the blog’s inbox contains a chorus of praise: “Thanks for the wise analysis,” one reader tells us, or, an even more enthusiastic writer: “Super-Duper website! I am loving it!! Will come back again.”

Some are positively ecstatic:

“Please tell me that youre heading to keep this up! Its so beneficial and so important. I cant wait to read more from you. I just really feel like you know so much and know how to make people listen to what you might have to say. This blog is just too cool to be missed. Excellent things, genuinely. Please, PLEASE keep it up!”

Many of our readers feel that we understand them – deeply: “Its such as you read my thoughts!” One commentator apparently even earned his breakfast with our blog texts:

“An outstanding share! I have just forwarded this onto a coworker who has been conducting a little research on this. And he actually ordered me breakfast because I found it for him… lol.”

Why we also withhold these comments from our readers? Well, our zealous writers unfortunately would like to sell fake sunglasses, wedding dresses, and the likes on the side. They disclose their intentions with names like “Fake Sunglasses” or “cocktail dress in uk” and with links adeptly nestled in their comments. Some enterprises are at least related to our themes: bat mitzvah-clothing sales, for instance.

And yet, deleting spam is more enlightening than dealing with anti-Semitic comments. Some would-be vendors provide us with psychological insights, such as: “there are things that we don’t want to happen but have to accept, things we don’t want to know but have to learn, and people we can’t live without but have to let go.” Or: “It’s appropriate time to make some plans for the future and it’s time to be happy.”

Most of all, we enjoy the comments of interested people who really want to discuss our articles and themes with us.